I probably haven’t even read this comic since 1992.
So in response to the recent news about DC’s lenticular covers for their Villains Month special event, Twitter pal Joe and I had the following back ‘n’ forth:
This is the Eclipso: The Darkness Within cover in question, by the way, straight outta my collection:
And here’s a close-up of the gem:
Geez, I should have looked a little more closely, and picked one that didn’t still have that bit of flash by the top corner, there. Ah, well. Way to go, younger me.
Now it’s been a while…like “over twenty years” a while, so my memory was that there were two versions of the Eclipso comic, one with a plastic gem and without sans gem…well, that bit is right, anyway, but I thought that you paid a little extra for the privilege of having a big lump on the front of your comic that would dent the comic ahead of it in the box. Turns out I was wrong, thankfully, because I didn’t want to think I dished out an extra fifty cents for that. I do notice that the drawing of the gem is actually removed from the cover that had the plastic gem glued to it, which is nice attention to detail, I think.
Anyway, after a close investigation of the comics surrounding that issue of Eclipso in my storage box, I can determine no damage caused by said gem to any of the comics in front of it. The box was not tightly packed, however, whether by accident or by subconscious desire to avoid pressing anything too heavily against that Eclipso, because like I said in that Twitter post up there, it did occasionally cross my mind that storing that comic was going to terrible, terrible things to other innocent comics. I didn’t worry enough about it to put a backing board or something in front of it as other Twitter pal Christopher suggested, but it was just one of those comic related things floating around in my head, like “which issue of X-Men did snowy Iceman become icy Iceman” and “hold on, I didn’t actually buy X-Force #1, did I?”
Of course, writing about this has me wondering about how our backstock of this Eclipso comic is being stored at the shop. I sure hope we packed the box properly way back when.
Anyway, back to that DC Villains event…I don’t know about the rest of those comics, but we’re gonna sell a billion of those Jokers.
Don’t be so hard on Younger Mike – my copy had a gem with flash on it, too. In fact, my memory is that ALL the copies my store received had flash on the plastic gem. This is the sort of thing that bothered me back then.
And yes, I confess that I double-boarded that comic when I still owned it – and still boarded my comics, actually.
“And here’s a close-up of the gem”
hello, cheap plastic blob!
and Robin 2 was HORRID series. The regular series was decent, though, go figure!
I gotta say I absolutely loved Robin II. One of my favorite Chuck Dixon works. III had a little too many things going on, but wasn’t bad. (Commenting solely on the content, as I only own the newsstand covers.)
The Eclipso crossover…I think a piece of cheap plastic incompetently glued to a comic cover is a good metaphor for the writing and art.
My copy of that comic had the gem ripped off (not by me but by whoever had it before me as I bought it at a yard sale). I WUZ ROBBED!!!
Also, I’m bothered by how off-center that gem is from that sparkle effect. I guess the guy in charge of gluing the gems onto each cover put about as much care and effort into it as everyone else did.
This post reminds me of some record collectors I know, and their Rolling Stones Sticky Fingers zippers causing problems for the next record on the shelf.
Wait – Ventriloquist gets a cover? Really?
I mean I love Ventriloquist and Scarface myself (mostly, admittedly, due to the cartoon), but when I think “Batman Villain Whose Face On The Cover Will Move Copies”, Ventriloquist isn’t one that immediately comes to mind. Joker – sure, Two-Face – yeah, Poison Ivy – alright, Ventriloquist?
I loved the Eclipso crossover. Yeah, I said it.
I…
I bought five copies of X-Force #1.
Cos each one came with a card and I wanted all five.
:(
On the other hand, we still remember and are talking about that purple plastic gem, so…well done, DC creative marketing guy.
Mike,
Did you ever touch the gem while thinking vengeful thoughts, just to see if you’d summon a revenge monster or become Eclipsed? I thought of it, but was too frightened of the tiny chance that something terrible might happen to experiment.
Jer,
And that’s not even the original Ventriloquist, but, what, Ventriloquist III…?
I wonder if anyone went through the trouble of slabbing this issue.
” the trouble of slabbing this issue.”
“IT’S DEAD. WRAPPED IN PLASTIC.”